Tony Trout
07-10-2008, 12:54 AM
New DNA Technology Clears Family JonBenet Ramsey (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/us/10ramsey.html?ref=us)
DENVER — A persistent thread among conspiracy theorists and true-crime bloggers who for years have pondered the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, the child beauty queen found strangled in her family’s home in nearby Boulder more than 11 years ago, is that the police and prosecutors inadequately investigated whether her killer was a member of the family.
On Wednesday, the Boulder County district attorney, Mary T. Lacy, said definitively that the whispers about prosecutorial plots and favoritism were fantasy. A new technique of analysis, Ms. Lacy said in a letter to JonBenet’s father, John Ramsey, has found DNA traces, unobtainable by earlier methods, of an unidentified male on the long johns JonBenet wore the night she died.
The DNA is not from a member of the Ramsey family and is almost definitely that of the killer, who would have presumably removed or otherwise handled the long johns, Ms. Lacy said.
The genetic material matches that from a drop of blood found on JonBenet’s underwear early in the investigation. The authorities determined then that the blood was not from a member of the Ramsey family but could not say whether it came from the killer, Ms. Lacy said.
The letter to Mr. Ramsey said the new evidence “has vindicated your family,” adding, “No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion.” It said specifically that neither Mr. Ramsey nor his wife, Patsy, who died of cancer in 2006, nor their son, Burke, was “under any suspicion in the commission of this crime.”
Two years ago, Ms. Lacy’s office announced with great fanfare the arrest of a suspect, John M. Karr, after what Ms. Lacy described at the time as “several months of a focused and complex investigation.” But Mr. Karr’s DNA did not match, and less than two weeks later Ms. Lacy announced that he had been cleared of suspicion.
The methodology that led to Wednesday’s announcement, called “touch DNA” analysis, is essentially a way of looking for traces of genetic material that earlier methods would have overlooked.
Ms. Lacy said a private laboratory, the Bode Technology Group of Lorton, Va., had tested material scraped from the waistband of the long johns and found a match with the earlier samples taken from the crotch of the underwear JonBenet wore on the night of the crime.
Thoughts?
DENVER — A persistent thread among conspiracy theorists and true-crime bloggers who for years have pondered the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, the child beauty queen found strangled in her family’s home in nearby Boulder more than 11 years ago, is that the police and prosecutors inadequately investigated whether her killer was a member of the family.
On Wednesday, the Boulder County district attorney, Mary T. Lacy, said definitively that the whispers about prosecutorial plots and favoritism were fantasy. A new technique of analysis, Ms. Lacy said in a letter to JonBenet’s father, John Ramsey, has found DNA traces, unobtainable by earlier methods, of an unidentified male on the long johns JonBenet wore the night she died.
The DNA is not from a member of the Ramsey family and is almost definitely that of the killer, who would have presumably removed or otherwise handled the long johns, Ms. Lacy said.
The genetic material matches that from a drop of blood found on JonBenet’s underwear early in the investigation. The authorities determined then that the blood was not from a member of the Ramsey family but could not say whether it came from the killer, Ms. Lacy said.
The letter to Mr. Ramsey said the new evidence “has vindicated your family,” adding, “No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion.” It said specifically that neither Mr. Ramsey nor his wife, Patsy, who died of cancer in 2006, nor their son, Burke, was “under any suspicion in the commission of this crime.”
Two years ago, Ms. Lacy’s office announced with great fanfare the arrest of a suspect, John M. Karr, after what Ms. Lacy described at the time as “several months of a focused and complex investigation.” But Mr. Karr’s DNA did not match, and less than two weeks later Ms. Lacy announced that he had been cleared of suspicion.
The methodology that led to Wednesday’s announcement, called “touch DNA” analysis, is essentially a way of looking for traces of genetic material that earlier methods would have overlooked.
Ms. Lacy said a private laboratory, the Bode Technology Group of Lorton, Va., had tested material scraped from the waistband of the long johns and found a match with the earlier samples taken from the crotch of the underwear JonBenet wore on the night of the crime.
Thoughts?